Kent, OH – Dr. Kariamu Welsh, noted African dance choreographer and scholar, will visit Kent State University on Sept. 26 through a partnership between the School of Theatre and Dance and the Department of Pan-African Studies.
Dr. Welsh will present a lecture entitled “African Dance in America: Protest Identity and Continuity” from 12 p.m. to 1 p.m. in room D022 in the Center for the Performing Arts.
Following the lecture, Dr. Welsh will present a workshop entitled “Let the Circle be Unbroken: African Dance and the Umfundalai Technique” from 1:15 p.m. to 2:45 p.m. in dance studio D123 in the Roe Green Center of the Center for the Performing Arts.
Dr. Kariamu Welsh is a choreographer and professor in the dance department in the Boyer College of Music and Dance at Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She received her Doctor of Arts from New York University and her MA.H. from the State University of New York at Buffalo.
Widely published in both scholarly journals and book length studies, Welsh is a scholar of cultural studies including performance and culture within Africa and the African Diaspora.
She is the author of several books including "Zimbabwe Dance: Rhythmic Forces, Ancestral Voices: An Aesthetic Analysis" and she is the editor of "The African Aesthetic: Keeper of Traditions" and "African Dance: An Artistic, Historical and Philosophical Inquiry."
Dr. Welsh is the founding artistic director of the National Dance Company of Zimbabwe in southern Africa and is also the artistic director of Kariamu & Co.: Traditions.
Dr. Welsh is the recipient of numerous fellowships, grants and awards including a National Endowment for the Arts Choreography Fellowship, a Pew Fellowship, a Simon Guggenheim Fellowship, a Pennsylvania Council on the Arts grant and a Senior Fulbright Scholar Award.
Welsh and collaborators Nnenna Freelon and Maya Freelon Asante received a NPN grant, NEFA and an NEA grant to create an evening length work called The Clothesline Muse. The work premiered in March in Philadelphia and will tour in 2015. Currently Welsh is researching the Afro-Colombian dances of Colombia’s Cali and Cartagena regions.
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Media Contact:
Joni Koneval, jkoneval@kent.edu, 330-672-0116